Post navigation

I’ve been quiet on this blog lately, for a lot of reasons. One of which is getting caught up on other projects, another of which is evaluating in which directions to move this space.

But I shared this on my Facebook, and it’s practically a novel, so I thought I’d share it here too. If you’ve been reading me for awhile, you’ve heard some of this before.

I lost my mother to suicide.

Social media, for me, has been a minefield the last couple of days.

I usually stay quiet at times like these, because the grief comes back all to easily, and with grief always comes a difficulty with words – a trouble expressing. And there is always that old truth; that it is easier to hide pain than to show it.

Which brings me to the first point I want to make.

A very popular response to news like this is to share National Suicide Prevention Hotlines. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong. Get that information out there. Keep sharing it. Having this resource is an excellent first step.

But I can’t help but think of all that I know about actually trying to access care. It is not as simple as calling a phone number. It is not an answer, as all those #chooselife and #dontgetsolowyoucantgetout hashtags imply.

The phone number is a crisis response. It’s a band-aid while you wait for surgery.

Trying to access care looks like months of waiting. Years of ‘trial and error’ with medications. Getting turned away from emergency services because the beds are full.

This is the unavoidable truth:

While we’ve seen radical advancements in technology and medical science, our response to mental health illnesses has remained relatively the same for hundreds of years. We isolate and segregate. We stigmatize. Did you know that schizophrenia occupies the most hospital beds compared to any other illness (even cancer), yet continually receives the lowest funding in research for new treatments?

Our mental healthcare system as a whole is desperately, dangerously, perilously underfunded.

A crisis hotline is a reactionary measure. Our entire mental healthcare system is based upon a reactionary response system. We react to mental illness. Until we stop reacting to mental illness, and start proactively building mental health – our system will remain overburdened. We need to restructure the entire system, and there are no easy answers. Hell, there aren’t even answers at this point.

The Suicide Prevention Hotline is a crisis intervention. It is not a solution.

Which brings me to the second point I’d like to make. The next most popular type of post is ‘I want my friends to know that I am always here to talk. Reach out if you need help.’

And I believe you. I know you mean it.

Giving help is far easier than asking for it, however. Reaching out, being vulnerable, is hard AF. We live in a society that has a strict view on what qualifies as ‘strength’, and vulnerability is rarely a part of that equation. For example, I am outspoken about how I lost my mother, and each and every time – whether it be on the news, on social media, in an article I’m writing, or speaking about it to an audience or just one person… requires me to be vulnerable.

It is terrifying every single time.

It doesn’t fit neatly into my script – the one where I am strong, happy, successful, capable, competent. It is uncomfortable to bear my scars publicly. It is uncomfortable because as a culture, we do not know how to deal with emotional pain. I can see when someone doesn’t know how to react, what to say, how to support me. Most often, I end up soothing whomever I’m talking to – letting them know it’s okay (it isn’t really) and that I’m okay (I am, even when I’m not. It’s okay to not be okay.)

For every time I speak out, there are 10 times I don’t.

Because it takes herculean amounts of energy and courage and willpower to do so. It is far easier to say nothing.

I was talking to a war veteran recently who had been newly diagnosed with PTSD. He was struggling with whether or not to tell his family. It didn’t fit into his script about himself. That he was the strong one, the rock for everyone else. It felt like his diagnosis ran in contradiction to that, that ‘PTSD’ took away ‘strength’ from his identity.

I suggested that maybe we have to redefine what constitutes as ‘strong’. Maybe being the best role model for his daughters didn’t mean being flawless, impervious in the face of trauma, but being courageous enough to show the cracks in the amour. To have the strength to show vulnerability and imperfection. To be honest about struggling, to be a living example that you don’t have to be ashamed to struggle. That we all struggle. To be human is to be perfectly imperfect. That we can value courage over perfection.

That maybe the measure of a man isn’t whether or not he struggles – because struggle is an inevitable side effect of living – but how he faces that struggle.

Because that’s a script that desperately needs changing.

We need to stop stigmatizing mental illness. People who suffer from mental illnesses are not ‘weak’. They are demi-gods who somehow manage to lift the unbelievable weight of suffering and pain and still go on to accomplish incredible things like founding a multi-billion fashion empire – or becoming an internationally-known personality traveling the world exploring culture, cuisine, and the human condition.

People living with mental illnesses are demi-gods who still manage to raise families, hold 9-to-5 jobs, live life, and do all the things the rest of us do in our day-to-day lives all while maintaining that herculean effort it takes to live with a mental illness.

People who die by suicide, did not die in ‘a moment of weakness’.

They were defeated by an illness.

—

I’d like to end with quote that I always share during the course of my Living with Suicide Loss volunteer work or at Suicide Prevention Awareness events. I found it on an online message board shortly after I lost my mother. I hope it speaks to you in this time of grief as deeply as it speaks to me:

“Our friend died on her own battlefield. She was killed in action fighting a civil war. She fought against adversaries that were as real to her as her casket is real to us. They were powerful adversaries. They took toll of her energies and endurance. They exhausted the last vestiges of her courage and strength. At last these adversaries overwhelmed her. And it appeared that she lost the war. But did she? I see a host of victories that she has won!

For one thing — she has won our admiration — because even if she lost the war, we give her credit for her bravery on the battlefield. And we give her credit for the courage and pride and hope that she used as her weapons as long as she could. No one knows what she suffered in the silent skirmishes. We shall remember not her death, but her daily victories gained through her kindnesses and thoughtfulness, through her love for family and friends, for food and books and music, for all things beautiful, lovely and honorable. We shall remember the many days that she was victorious over overwhelming odds. We shall remember not the years we thought she had left, but the intensity with which she lived the years she had!”

So, I came across this wreath in my travels and even though I don’t decorate for Christmas (calm down, I just usually go away for the holidays and they have decorations up) I wanted to buy him and carry him around with me.

I legit considered flying this across the country with me. It is not small.

Seriously, I was thinking about forgoing gifts for my family, because honestly, all you need is Charlie.

Did I forget to mention I named him Charlie?

Yes, despite the big red lips and the false eyelashes that go on for miles, I am convinced that Charlie is a him and he is living his very best life dammit.

Luckily for my family, when I went back to get him he was already gone. I hope that wherever he is, he is being treated well and appreciated for all his glory.

To my family:

I’m sorry I lost out on him.

Or you’re welcome?

It depends on how attached you are to your definitely-not-as-awesome-as-Charlie gift that you’re getting.

Prepare to have a framed picture of Charlie put under the tree, with a candle and flowers in an Ode-to-the-Christmas-that-almost-was.

This post deals with suicide grief and contains triggers. I know my last post was also about grief, and I try to avoid doing multiple posts in a row because it’s such a heavy topic – but it’s hitting me hard this year and permeating all the corners of my mind.

******

As many of you know, December 1st was the anniversary of my mother’s suicide. It’s hard to get a description of what grief feels like, because you are trying to describe the indescribable. The words we have are inadequate, but we try anyway. Following is a quote about being a survivor of suicide, and what that feels like. The last couple paragraphs speak to me. When I came across it at the time, it was a relief to know that others have felt this way. So I’m sharing it here. I have often described grief as a hot coal sitting heavily in the center of my chest, burning me alive from the inside out. Hurting so bad it’s hard to breathe.

“You know, you don’t really ever contemplate the meaning of gone before something like suicide.

Loss is not always just loss. Pain is not always just pain. Anger is not always just anger.

For me, these are things I don’t actually feel anymore. They are just a part of me. They just exist.

I don’t feel the brick on my chest or the lump in my throat. I don’t feel the sad and the hurt. I suppose I feel certain things, but not these. I think the most accurate way to describe it is that something was there and it no longer is. It’s like I’m one of those anatomy models in your high school science classroom. Someone, the one, has come and taken away all the vital parts. It looks familiar, you can sort of recognize it but it just isn’t right.

My best friend once told me about love. She said ‘The hot, fire-y, bodice-ripping love is intense. It comes on strong but you can’t stoke a fire like that. It burns too hot, uses up all the fuel and goes out. Lasting love is more like this ember. It’s reached the core and is steady and strong. Yes, you have to maintain it but it will sustain you.’ A steady warmth at your core.

When you left, that ember morphed and took on a life of its own. Now I’m burnt, from somewhere near the bottom of my chin down my throat and over my chest; it spread out across my shoulders and stopped right above my belly button. All I feel I can do is stand there with my arms out and display this massive charred raw wound I’m left with. Naked, vulnerable and wounded. I breathe heavy. I stand there not showing anything, no pain or hurt is detectable on my face. Wanting more than anything for you to be standing there, in front of me to witness. Selfish…maybe…probably. It’s how I feel. I hate being the girl you left behind.

But…you…are…gone.”

I had a link in here, but this draft has been in my folder for a long time and the original source can no longer be found, it was taken down by the hosting site.

It takes time, but we do heal in our way. You don’t get over it, you get through it. These kind of emotional scars, you do carry them with you for a lifetime. You will always feel this loss, but instead of letting it go you sort of expand to make room for it. You adjust to it’s weight. And someday, it won’t hurt quite so bad. I’m still waiting for that someday.

And that’s okay.

Here are some affirmations from Toronto illustrator Hana Shafi that are making me feel better. To see more of her work check out her Tumblr and Instagram.

It’s the time of year when I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother’s death. The hardest thing about living with the loss of a loved one to suicide is the seemingly never-ending guilt and anger.

I replay the moments that torture me on a loop – thinking if only I could have done more. Gave more, done more, been more. I’m angry at myself for not being something that I could never be – that no one could ever be. I’m angry that sometimes I lashed out. That I wasn’t always perfect. That I wasn’t a never-ending well of giving.

I recently had to upgrade my license to a Class 4 so the government would know that I probably won’t crash when driving a bunch of people around in a 15 passenger van but that seems really unfair because WAS MY LIFE ALONE NOT WORTH THE EXTRA LEVEL OF TESTING? Now I feel unloved by the government, which to be honest is kind of a regular problem.

I’m getting off track.

I felt like I had leveled up in life. Like, if life were a video game, the ‘badge unlocked!’ screen would flash in front of my face and give me a gold star.

Except.

The rental van – which was so big it was more like a bus – was way fancier than my little beater car and it had a bunch of buttons on the dash that I had never seen before. I asked my trainer about them but she was like “just ignore those” but I can’t because BUTTONS and I couldn’t ask my driving tester guy because I was afraid he’d be like “you don’t know what those buttons are?” and then take away my fancy license.

If you managed to follow that you also get a gold star for your ability decipher bullshit.

That one’s important.

And, sidenote, it’s funny that I have a fancy license because I am the same girl that proclaimed, upon entering a friend’s car;

“Ooo, automatic windows and air-conditioning. Fancy! My car is manual everything, and you know what I do when it’s too hot out? I die. I stagnate in a car so hot it would be illegal to leave a pet in it. What does this button do?”

And then, a week later, I stated that I couldn’t drive a stick. I was with the same friend, and they gave me a look of utter confusion and said “Didn’t you say your car was manual?”

Anyhow, back to the buttons in the van. Now I feel like it will be one of those great unsolved mysteries – I’ll never know what these buttons do and I’m too afraid to push any of them in case one of them is the ‘spontaneously combust’ button, which frankly, would be irresponsible of them to include without clearly marking it with an on-fire stick man.

There also appears to be a to-do list button, and I don’t know much about how these designer features are added but I don’t think you should be creating your to-do lists and driving at the same time.

Seems distracting.

I’m already bad enough at to-do lists.

Mazda, if you’re reading this, I’d be happy to come aboard as a consultant and test-drive your new vehicles in exchange for insightful feedback such as this.

Only automatics though.

The moral of the story here is that it’s been found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that I am responsible enough to transport lots of other adults around at once.

I had to make a dish for a staff potluck, and one of my coworkers is vegetarian so I decided to look for something new to try. Because it felt wrong to make something with loads of meat in and then be like “SORRY NONE FOR YOU.”

It would also be decidedly less funny the next time she was handing out paychecks and was like “SORRY NONE FOR YOU.”

Although to be fair, it would probably be hilarious for everyone else.

I’m getting off-topic.

Anyhow, everyone loved it and demanded the recipe so I promised I’d share. Then I was asked if I’d followed the recipe exactly, and of course I did because being exact is very, very important to me of course I didn’t, so I also promised to add notes with my variations.

And the notes turned out to be funny, so I’m sharing the whole thing with you too.

Here’s a photo I took to send to my sisters because when I make things I sometimes like to take photos of it in order to pretend that I have my life together. I call it The Instagram Illusion:

4 cloves garlic, minced (Again, I used a pre-mined garlic. There was a time I really enjoyed mincing my own garlic but those days are behind me now. I guessed at how many tablespoons would equate to 4 cloves then doubled it cause I like garlic. But then I had to use less because I ran out. The moral of the story is no one really knows how much garlic I used in the making of this soup.)

1 teaspoon salt (I used a pink Himalayan salt here, and cause it’s in a grinder I just ground out a little pile that looked like it might be a teaspoon. You might notice my cooking style is very relaxed. The only necessity is music played at a high decibel level. It relaxes the vegetables before they’re cooked, resulting in a sweeter taste. At least, that’s what I yell over the music when my roommate asks me to turn it down.)

1 bunch collard greens (or kale), ribs removed and leaves chopped into 1-inch strips (I used kale. I did remove the ribs, but I didn’t ‘1-inch strip’ it. I just chopped it up. The 1-inch thing felt a little demanding and ain’t NO recipe gonna tell me what to do.)

½ cup tomato paste* (I picked up little cans of compliments tomato paste. ½ a cup 118ml and my little can was 152ml and there’s totally no way I was save a tiny little bit of this tiny little can so it all went in. I just added more peanut butter to balance it out).

¼ cup roughly chopped peanuts, for garnish (I have no idea how much I used – garnishes literally do no matter. I used a mortar pestle to crush. Actually, more accurately, I WOULD HAVE used my mortar pestle except I can’t find it in my moving boxes at the moment so I just used a shot glass and bowl to crush the peanuts, realizing as I did so how much I was ripped off when I bought my mortar pestle. But this recipe is not the right place for a cultural commentary on consumerism through the lens of mortar pestles, so I’ll leave that for another day. You’re welcome.)

Instructions

In a medium Dutch oven or stock pot, bring the broth to a boil. Add the onion, ginger, garlic and salt. Cook on medium-low heat for 20 minutes. (I just used a large pot, cause who actually has a Dutch oven? No one living on a not-for-profit salary, that’s who.)

In a medium-sized, heat-safe mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter and tomato paste, then transfer 1 to 2 cups of the hot stock to the bowl. Whisk the mixture together until smooth, then pour the peanut mixture back into the soup and mix well. Stir in the collard greens (or kale) and season the soup with hot sauce. (I just kept adding swirls and tasting until I liked it. I wanted it to have a little heat but not so much it would cause anyone to throw up, like last soup* I made, should they try it.)

Simmer for about 15 more minutes on medium-low heat, stirring often. Serve over cooked brown rice if you’d like, and top with a sprinkle of chopped peanuts. (I used Basmati rice, cause no other rice matters. Also, I probably simmered for closer to 20 minutes as I thought the kale could use some more softening up.)

Notes

*The cookbook author suggested that 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes is a suitable substitution for the tomato paste, but commenters report that the crushed tomatoes produce a runny soup (unlike the thick soup shown here). I highly recommend using tomato paste if you can find it. I also recommend Muir Glen‘s organic tomato products—they come in BPA-free cans and seem to be readily available.

Most African peanut soup recipes include sweet potatoes. I suppose you could toss in a chopped sweet potato when you bring the stock to a boil, but I liked the soup as is.

*The last soup I made really did make someone throw up, but they have terrible indigestion but love spicy stuff and the soup was really spicy. I’d like to point out in my defense, that they said it was delicious on the way down. I didn’t ask how it was on the way back up.

I wavered on whether to write about it – I’m not a political or cultural commentator, and people wiser than I are already discussing, writing, analyzing, and illuminating the topic. But I have a feeling that in order to achieve any sort of true change, and move forward, we have to – at least – speak out. To speak up for the people around us. To speak up for what we believe to be good, and true, and kind.

I’m shocked, because it’s impossible not to be shocked by such things, but I’m not surprised. In the Western world, racial tensions have always bubbled beneath the surface while we pat ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come.

We aren’t talking loudly enough about the socially-sanctioned violence that is being inflicted upon minorities. Now, but also before Charlottesville, from before Trump ever came along – although he seems to have fanned the flames.

So let’s talk. Or, in this case, read.

This is some reading that I’ve been doing, in my attempt to get some clarity about what happened. Hopefully, it’ll resonate with you too.

“Charlottesville, Virginia, feels enough like Eden that it’s always been easy to hide a certain amount of blood […] What happened in Charlottesville is less an aberrant travesty in a progressive enclave than it is a reminder of how much evil can be obscured by the appearance of good.”

“Even the most feared white supremacists in the lore of Jim Crow were just regular white men […] The disconnect in terms is understandable. It’s one thing to see the Red Shirts and Klansmen as bogeymen of the past and imagine their pogroms and mob clashes in the abstract. It’s another to see them manifest suddenly in violent strength, even if one subscribes to the idea that white supremacy runs deeper than caricatures of hooded rogues, and that its long tendrils have always animated politics and political violence in America.”

“Today marks the first fatal terrorist attack to occur on this president’s watch, but it did not come at the hands of that one religious group he denigrates at every opportunity, and whose adherents he wants desperately to ban from entering the country. Instead, it was committed by people who have been living among us all along, quietly waiting for an opportunity that, at long last, has arrived. Hate has always existed in America. Donald Trump just made it fashionable again.”

“Antifa (short for anti-fascist) traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.”

“Saying it’s (Antifa) a problem is vastly different than implying, as Trump did, that it’s a problem equal to white supremacism. Using the phrase “alt-left” suggests a moral equivalence that simply doesn’t exist […] antifa’s vision is not as noxious. Antifa activists do not celebrate regimes that committed genocide and enforced slavery. They’re mostly anarchists. Anarchism may not be a particularly practical ideology. But it’s not an ideology that depicts the members of a particular race or religion as subhuman [..] If Donald Trump really wants to undermine antifa, he should do his best to stamp out the bigotry that antifa—counterproductively—mobilizes against. Taking down Confederate statues in places like Charlottesville would be a good start.”

“Look, getting a job because your name is Geoff is not the same thing as joining the KKK, but that privilege is precisely the thing white supremacists were working to reassert in Charlottesville. They chanted about not being “replaced.” Their very existence is grounded in insisting on a moral claim to this country as a superior race. They want to continue having every possible advantage based on the color of their skin; that’s practically the mission statement. Most white people are at least aware that they benefit from white supremacy, and yet we stuff down these painfully obvious truths, tending to our cognitive dissonance like a paper cut that won’t heal, worrying more about being called racists than the effects of racism itself.”

Like this:

Hillsburn is playing our Blues & Jazz music festival tomorrow, and I’m pumped. Two weeks ago, one of my dear friends (and total music buff) was like; “Have you heard of Hillsburn?” and I was like; “Nope” but then she put on the CD and I had totally heard one of their songs before. So I’m totes hip.

I don’t know what it is about my particular corner of the world, but here in the East Coast incredible artists and creators are literally dripping out of our walls. Literally. It’s kind of creepy actually.

Anyway, I think they must be spiking the water or something. And as long as they’re already spiking the water with talent, they might as well throw some LSD in there too. (Is that still a cool drug? I don’t know what the kids are taking these days.) Would make for a super interesting Saturday. That way we can all chase the dragons in the kitchen.

I’ve gotten off-topic.

Back to Hillsburn. These are some of my favs from their album “In the Battle Years”. Definitely worth taking a listen.

I also really love the last song from that album; “Billy”, but I can’t find a version that will play for me on YouTube so I don’t wanna link it. It’s on Spotify though, and I highly recommend taking a listen. Cause it’s super dark. Spoiler: It’s about murder. But it’s got a super catchy riff so it’s okay.